


The Affair of the Affectionate Devil

by GloriaMundi



Category: Fallen London | Echo Bazaar, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Community: trope_bingo, M/M, Soul Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-29
Updated: 2013-10-29
Packaged: 2017-12-30 21:13:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1023449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GloriaMundi/pseuds/GloriaMundi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Mr Holmes and I were merely discussing the metaphysics of the soul, as revealed by our mutual studies of the Correspondence."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Affair of the Affectionate Devil

The Affectionate Devil congratulated himself on a job well done. Sherlock Holmes, lured in by rumours of a missing Journalist like an urchin chasing after a rat. Who'd have thought?

"Soul?" Holmes said, with a sneer. "Nonsense: there's no such thing."

Kitty Riley, the Journalist who'd so obligingly provided the pretext for Holmes' presence, had already been led away by a Quiet Deviless. All around the salon, other devils were beguiling their prey. Each of them carried, somewhere about their person, one or more Infernal Contracts: after all, it was of paramount importance that the correct procedures were adhered to.

"No such thing?" The Affectionate Devil permitted himself a gentle laugh. "Then, my dear, you won't object to my extracting it." He poured Holmes another glass of Morelways 1882. "A fine vintage, wouldn't you agree?"

"Delightful," said Holmes. His gaze flickered over the other guests. The Affectionate Devil looked forward immensely to stilling that gaze, tempering that busy brain. He tried to see the room as Sherlock Holmes might see it. The soft light of mourning-candles; the shimmering drape of velvet; the mixed odours of expensive perfumes, clove cigarettes and anxiety. The soft chime of brass curtain-rings as a crimson curtain was drawn aside. 

The Quiet Deviless emerged, a blue glass phial in one hand. Kitty Riley followed the Deviless back into the room. She no longer carried her little red notebook. Her former anxious avidity was transmuted to hazy-eyed bliss: her mouth was red with kisses, and a little blood.

"What has been done to her?" Holmes demanded. His eyes were truly remarkable, and (thought the Affectionate Devil) rather beautiful, in a wintry sort of way. 

For the first time the Devil allowed a little of his natural rapacity to sharpen his smile. "Why, Mr Holmes, nothing save the removal of that entity which you have described as 'superstitious claptrap'. Come, sir: will you not experience the procedure for yourself? Think of it, if you will, as a scientific enquiry."

The Journalist was swaying towards their table. Her pupils were dilated, as though she had been in a dark place. (But Fallen London was always dark.) 

"Sherlock Holmes?" she said. "Kitty Riley. I've been following your accounts in The London Gazette. Have you resolved any cases of late?"

"No,"said Holmes coolly, "but I hope to do so very soon. Tell me, madam: what occurred just now, beyond that curtain? Were you drugged? Mesmerized? Quickly, now!"

The Journalist blinked vaguely. "I..." she began.

Holmes sighed theatrically. "Did they give you something to drink, or --"

The Affectionate Devil became aware of a clamour in the vestibule. "No, I'm his doctor!" someone was shouting. "You have to let me tend to him! He is not in his right mind!"

If there was opposition, it was more temperately expressed.

"He is suffering from an unfortunate malady. Yes, highly contagious."

"Sir, you cannot--"

But the mysterious doctor had not heeded the warnings and expostulations of the Clay Men who guarded the Embassy. The heavy brass doors flew open as though they were made of paper, and a short, sturdy, nondescript fellow stormed in. "A malady of the _soul_ ," he called over his shoulder, scanning the salon. 

The moment when he laid eyes on Holmes was plain. Interesting, thought the Affectionate Devil. 

"John?" said Holmes, staring as blankly as though his soul had already been abstracted. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"What the hell, indeed," said John. (Dr John Watson, that was his name. Late of the 23rd Neathy Rifles and of the Tomb Colonies: currently sharing lodgings in Moloch Street with Mr Holmes.) "Sherlock, you need to come with me. Now."

"Whatever can you mean?" interpolated the Affectionate Devil, smiling lazily at the Doctor. "Mr Holmes and I were merely discussing the metaphysics of the soul, as revealed by our mutual studies of the Correspondence."

"You shan't have it," said the Doctor fiercely, oblivious to the Quiet Deviless gliding up behind him. He flinched when her scorching breath stirred his hair.

"Fascinating,"she murmured, inclining her head respectfully towards the Affectionate Devil. "A conjoined pair. I had thought them quite extinct."

It was not a notion that the Affectionate Devil had previously entertained, but the Deviless was renowned for her powers of perception. And yes, if he looked just _so_ through his black glass monocle, he could see it clearly. Sherlock Holmes' brilliant, unstable soul was yoked to the steady flow of Doctor John Watson's.

A waste, perhaps; and yet, if he could abstract both, what a coup!

Holmes and Watson were arguing heatedly, in what they clearly believed were whispers. 

"-- don't care! All that reading of those vile documents you claim reveal occult secrets -- don't even pretend you've slept these last three nights --"

"Oh, for heaven's sake," said Holmes furiously, prompting a sussurus of outrage at this déclassé and obscene utterance. "Souls don't exist, you idiot. Have you ever found a soul, in all your anatomical experimentation? Of course --"

"Yes," said Doctor John Watson firmly. "Yours, when you faked your death last month."

Holmes was, momentarily, struck silent. (The Affectionate Devil would have applauded this coup, but did not wish to encourage the Doctor in his mission.) "You," he began. "It." He closed his eyes, frowning. "You did," he whispered. "I ... I see it now. And --"

"And I put it somewhere safe," said John Watson. 

"What, in the drawer with those leftover Certifiable Scraps?" scoffed Holmes. "Do be original, John: that's where you put the laudanum last week."

John Watson smiled. "No," he said. "Somewhere _safe_."

"Behind the Counterfeit Head? Under the cat-box? In --"

"No," said the Doctor. "I put it with my own." And his smile broadened at the nakedness of Holmes' expression.

The Affectionate Devil, suddenly abashed and nauseous, looked away from the pair, examining the rim of his wineglass with studied inattention: and when he raised his burning eyes once more, only the rattle of brass curtain-rings and a breath of cold night air betrayed the departure of the man with two souls, and the man with none.

-end-

**Author's Note:**

> Begun as a writing exercise at Eastercon; rewritten as an exercise in picking the right POV.


End file.
